Comet which looks like a skull to fly past Earth on Halloween

The comet will come within 302,000 miles of Earth

Asteroid 2015 TB145 - a dead comet resembles a skull (NAIC-Arecibo/NSF)

A dead comet, which resembles a skull, is expected to fly past Earth on Halloween, according to Nasa.

The asteroid TB145, which scientists have been observing after only discovering this month, has now been determined as a comet and is expected to fly about 302,000 miles (486,000 km) from earth on October 31 at around 17:00 GMT.

The way the comet is shaped and the darker areas in the place of eyes mean the comet resembles a skull, making its passing-by on Halloween perfectly, albeit spookily, timed.

The comet is thought to have shed many of its elements and compounds after passing by the sun on numerous occasions.

The spherical comet has an estimated 2,000 feet (600 metres) diameter and rotates once every five hours.

Nasa scientists have been observing the comet from a telescope facility in Hawaii, and originally thought it to be an asteroid, naming it asteroid 2015 TB145. Scientists have since used the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to closer identify the matter.

Kelly Fast, a program scientist at Nasa said: “The IRTF (Infrared Telescope Facility) data may indicate that the object might be a dead comet, but in the Arecibo images it appears to have donned a skull costume for its Halloween flyby.”

Asteroid TB145 is expected to next come past our planet in September 2018, when it will come about a quarter of the distance between Earth and the sun.